Toto Wolff hints at Red Bull advantage despite 'switching off'

Toto Wolff and Christian Horner — Photo: © LAT Images

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Wolff hints at Red Bull advantage despite 'switching off'

Toto Wolff is familiar with advantages of dominating a season

Cal Gaunt

Wednesday 13 December 2023 09:57

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Toto Wolff believes Red Bull will benefit from the same advantages Mercedes did during their dominant era - being able to prepare the following year's car much earlier than their rivals.

Similar to the dominance experienced by Mercedes in its golden spell between 2014 and 2021, Red Bull discovered itself in a luxurious position to dial down the gears of development early in the season.

Red Bull had practically sealed the 2023 titles well before the constructors' and drivers' championships were officially secured in Japan and Qatar.

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And Wolff believes they will have been able to 'switch off' during the winter break - unlike most teams - as they are so far ahead in terms of preparing their 2024 machine.

Toto Wolff is aware Red Bull will have started developing their 2024 car much earlier than their challengers

Red Bull and Max Verstappen had effectively sealed their titles long before they were officially confirmed

Wolff: Time is an advantage

"I'm sure that Red Bull has probably switched off - there is no such thing as switching off [completely], but they will have started next year's car way ahead of everybody else," Wolff told RacingNews365.

"If we were in this situation, looking at our historic strategy, we would probably be all hands on deck by July on next year's car. That is a month-and-a-half earlier than we did [for 2024], so when you calculate the gains that you make alone in aero, you are talking a couple of tenths.

"You get out of the blocks in a good way, you are leading, you are the benchmark, you understand the car you're adding performance, like if you put an aero update on the car and it materialises like you're expecting it to, and then you are in the lead by half-a-second.

Toto Wolff will be hoping his Mercedes team can mount a more significant title challenge next season

"We've been there in 2019, 2020 and then you are in a cycle of positiveness where you're gaining an advantage - and this is one of the headwinds that we're having at the moment. You have the laws of diminishing returns, you're development or performance curve flattens, that is clear.

"The more mature the regulations are, the more you can extract and maybe our development curve is steeper because we are behind, but that is industrial theory, and whether you can apply it to the world of sports, I'm not quite sure.

"[Red Bull's] engineering team has just done a good job, they came out of the blocks, for whatever reason, much better than everybody else - and they have a driver who is on top of his game."

Red Bull Mercedes Toto Wolff